Please find enclosed the presentation by CPB Director Laura van Geest on the CPB role and lessons learned in the Dutch institutional setup, public governance and economic policy landscape. The world’s oldest fiscal watchdog was founded in 1945 by Jan Tinbergen, pioneer of econometrics and laureate of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (1969).

The seminar, organized by the Dutch Permanent Delegation to the OECD, has been moderated by Ambassador Noé van Hulst. After the CPB overview, the OECD Secretariat ( Bob Ford and Christian Kastrop) has provided some comments from an overall ECO perspective, followed by a Q&A session with participants.

In the course of its lifetime, the CPB has obtained a strong reputation in Dutch society, working at the crossroads of economic sciences and public policy. The CPB is a widely trusted (independent) source of economic analysis and insights on a broad range of issues, playing a central role in the national policy debate and tangibly contributing to social-economic decision-making processes.

It provides, among other things, the short-run macroeconomic forecasts used in the budgetary process, the mid- and long-term prospects for public finance, and cost-benefit analyses of all kinds of policy proposals (ranging from tax policy to social security and from education to infrastructure).

A well-known international CPB publication is the World Trade Monitor (WTM), a monthly worldwide report on international trade and industrial production.

A quite distinctive CPB feature is its assessment of economic, distributional and budgetary consequences of Dutch political parties' programs prior to general elections (to be held in March 2017). Though participation in this assessment is voluntary, all major parties do so. It offers a foundation for the development of policy plans by political parties and the negotiations for a new government after the elections.